Random EV thoughts.....

Agreed. In fact I suspect this is going to be amplified in the next few years as society is pushed further towards EV ownership combined with a lack of second hand EVs actually coming to market.

Even when supply side issues are resolved and manufacturers can satisfy demand, there is still going to be a lag period where there arent enough used EVs in the used car market keeping prices artificially high.

The car market is going to be new and second hand EV's and proper performance cars, PHEV and then the rest in that order. Even if everyone waiting on a EV got theirs tomorrow the second hand market will have nothing for years. Anyone buying a new car that is not an EV, unless its a van or they are a mid level traveling salesman doing 300+km a day...needs their heads examined.

The biggest challenge at the moment (again apart from supply issues) is affordability for the masses. Until we there are a few decent sub €40k offerings I think the Govt is going to struggle to achieve their targets.

I think this will only happen at scale once the major Chinese EV manufacturers start supplying the market. They are scaling up and building new factories quite quickly and it wont be long before we see their offerings. Aside from MG, who have got a head start, I'd reasonably expect to see the likes of BYD, XPeng & Nio. Possibly also ORA (EV offshoot of Great Wall Motors), Chery and Aiways. China will dominate the EV space in a decade.

Whilst they are all coming (or in some cases already here) to Europe, our biggest issue is that we need right hand drive cars, so really have to look at when/if they headed to the UK.

There was a time that even if all the cars were affordable give it a few years and those same cars on the secondary market became affordable. And with the lack of wear and tear on the drivetrain they should have been 90% as good as new after 3 years. That 50k Model 3 should be 30k after 3 years. But no supply chain and Covid means that there has been no depreciation. The governments scheme to incentivize expensive cars in order to trickle down to the affordable secondary has not worked. Its not that new technologies need to be affordable, its that they need to depreciate as well. In a world of inflation its also hard to make in demand good cheaper.

We had them but the overwhelming majority of people were too ignorant / afraid to buy them. A brand new Leaf suitable for a family of 5 was €19.5k on the road with metallic paint and a charger upgrade back in 2016. I paid €25k on the road for my Ioniq in early 2017.

Perhaps some of that ‘ignorant’ overwhelming majority, did not have access to charge at home options, the particular car did not have the required range, didn’t trust the brand….. etc, etc, etc…

How long until we can see this in our houses.

If you can afford any of the top selling cars Tuscon, Corolla, Chr, Rav4, Sportage you can afford an EV

Fair play but how many such EVs are actually out there? As you've said yourself most used EVs are going silly money now even if you could get your hands on one that meets your needs. And even if they were more plentiful there would be some guys who would jump in to make a killing on them. Its bad when you hear lads talking about hoovering up anything reasonable to garage and make a killing from the gullible down the road.

It's all very well describing people as ignorant if they are not straining on the leash to jump on the handful of good value EVs that pop up around the country. In reality the majority of people are not electronics/electrical anoraks so are simply not comfortable assessing the value of such cars.

People will be comfortable moving to EVs when there is a supply of affordable EVs and the industry is in a position to provide decent customer support. Until then the anoraks can continue to benefit from their expertise

Absolutely. Nailed. It.

This is absolutely 100% part of the issue. Look at the top selling cars and they're all in the luxury segments, regardless of engine type

Car manufacturers figured out years ago the profit on SUVs is way higher than budget hatchbacks, so they focus all the marketing on those cars

Most of the European manufacturers seem about ready to ditch the budget segment entirely and leave it to the Chinese and Indian brands

This of course filters down to the second hand market. If the only cars available are high spec SUVs that all got bought on PCP and have a minimum resale value that needs to be met, then guess what, there's no cheap cars

Add Brexit woes and the downturn in car purchases since 2008 then there's not a huge inventory of second hand cars out there anyway

I have said it before: EVs make perfect second hand cars in Ireland as owner "forgetting" to change oil for past 100k doesn't really affect them. People also hate leaving things plugged in so that stops cars sitting in chargers for days at the time at 100%. Also sedentary driving and/or short drives don't clog them up and cause issues.

Early models can suffer from DC charge abuse due to no charge for charging at the time but any cars registered since 2018 should have lived largely free from the excessive DC use.

The fantastic leaf on done deal, ''60km in the summer/spring'',

Hilarious.